BENGALURU/MUMBAI: Runup to elections and election results announcements are big viewership drivers for news channels in India. Assembly elections on 8 February 2020 and announcement of the election results of the New Delhi legislative assembly in week 6 of 2020 (Saturday, 8 February 2020 to Friday, 14 February 2020, week or period under review) boosted the combined viewership of the Top 5 English News channels by 49.5 percent as compared to the previous week. Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) reported a total of 2.741 million impressions for the top 5 English News channels in the week under review. The combined total of the top 5 channels during the previous week (week 5 of 2020) was 1.835 million weekly impressions.
Combined impressions of the top 5 English News channels in week 6 of 2020 was the highest ratings to date in 2020. The previous highest combined total of the top 5 English News channels in 2020 was in week 4 at 2.582 million weekly impressions. Further, the average combined weekly impressions of the top 5 English News channels during 41 weeks of the previous calendar year was 2.271 million weekly impressions. It must be remembered that BARC had stopped publication of ratings in the public domain to allow viewership to stablise after the implementation of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) New Tariff Order (NTO) for the weeks 6 to 12 of 2019. Hence, average of the remaining 41 weeks of 2019 (weeks 13 to 53 of 2019) or post week 12 of 2019 average has been considered.
Top 5 English News Channels in week 6 of 2020
Four of the channels in BARC’s weekly list of Top 5 English News channels for week 6 of 2020 were the same as in the previous week. Pub-caster Doordarshan’s English News channel DD India exited the list during the period under review, while the Radhika and Pronnoy Roy headed NDTV 24x7 made a rare appearance into BARC’s weekly list of Top 5 English News channels in week 06 of 2019.
At its normal numero uno position was the Arnab Goswami headed Republic TV with a phenomenal 74.5 percent lead in ratings in week 6 of 2020 of 1.141 million weekly impressions as compared to the 0.654 million weekly impressions in week 5. Also at its normal second rank was Times Now with 0.664 million weekly impressions in week 6 of 2020 which was 24.3 percent more than the 0.534 million weekly impressions in week 5. Continuing on at its previous week’s third rank was the India Today group’s India Today Television with 0.415 million weekly impressions in week 6 of 2020, a jump of 40 percent from the 0.303 million weekly impressions in the previous week.
Climbing up to fourth rank in week 6 of 2020 from the previous week’s fifth rank was Network18’s CNN News18 with 0.263 million weekly impressions, which was 61.3 percent more than the 0.163 million weekly impressions in week 5. Entering BARC’s weekly lists of Top 5 English News channels for was NDTV 24x7 with 0.258 million weekly impressions. This was NDTV 24x7 second appearance in BARC’s top 5 English News channels list in 2020. The channel had appeared in the lists earlier in calendar year 2020 in week 1.
